


A Promise Kept

by PRPangoro



Category: Shenmue
Genre: Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24555505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PRPangoro/pseuds/PRPangoro
Summary: In 1999, 10 years after their journey ended,Ren travels to Japan seeking to fulfill a promise he made to his friends years ago.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	A Promise Kept

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my first ever real,quote unquote “official” fan fiction so it’s definitely gonna be a little rough around the edges.  
> At one point I was too embarrassed to ever write a fan fiction for anything ever,shenmue or otherwise,but since this fandom desperately needs it,and I had no one else to talk to in length about shenmue and my feelings and theories on it,this.... thing sort of burst out of me.
> 
> I hope,kind reader,that it’s to your liking. 
> 
> I will appreciate any comment,criticism and observations about my writing style or story in general,since that helps me grow as a writer.
> 
> There are things in this fanfic that I intentionally omitted so it could be left up to the interpretation of the reader. If you wanna discuss your theories on something you spotted in the fic or ask a question regarding the story you are more than welcome to leave a comment or a message and I’ll respond ASAP!
> 
> This fanfic will be multi chapter, somewhere between 4 to 6 chapters depending on how everything goes.

What the hell am I doing?  
That was the one question that kept bouncing around Ren’s head ever since he set foot on the old stinking ship. It still felt pretty surreal to him,that he was actually on a ferry boat,sailing to japan as he had once said he would do. He almost felt like he was in a sort of dream state,and that any second now he would wake up and be back in his disgusting and overly populated prison cell.

His mind kept going back to the same question no matter what he did or how much he reasoned with himself.

But now that he was actually here,in japan,stepping down the stairs of the rusty run-down old ship his questions had turned into a hurricane of anxious self doubt. More than once he even thought about turning around and heading for... well,at the moment there wasn’t exactly a home to turn back to,but just anywhere else but here. But it was far too late for any of that now. Besides,running was for cowards,and he ain’t no goddamn coward. Besides that,he had made a promise and he was gonna keep it,no matter what happened now. 

It pissed him off,though,the way he could still be afflicted by anxiety over something that happened so long ago. He would be surprised if any of his friends held a grudge against him for his actions back in their traveling days,but somehow he also wouldn’t blame them if they did. Well,no matter what happens now,he was gonna have to face the consequences. He already did with Joy and Wong.  
He wondered if Ryo would be angry to see him,what Shenhua’s reaction would be. Would they be happy to see him? Furious? Would they turn him away?  
He rubbed his old facial scar. It throbbed painfully. He could tell he was about to get a headache.  
Jeez,Since when had he cared about this stuff anyways?! He hated the way his stomach dropped every time he thought about it. He hated the effect that damned kid still had on him,even after all these years. Well,he guessed Ryo probably wasn’t a kid anymore....

Joy had told him that Guizhang would be waiting for him near the point of exit of the ship,and to be on the look out for him.  
But now,at the Yokosuka harbor,he saw no sign of him. All around him he saw mostly workers and sailors either getting off the ship or climbing aboard the rusted hunk of metal. How any of them had the confidence to set foot inside it was beyond him. The damn thing made a huge racket and swayed harder than a swing; he had fully expected to wake up one morning to find himself underwater. 

He looked around a second time,this time searching for someone in a suit and tie. He wondered if Guizhang still preferred that type of clothes,but regardless of if it was or not,it was the only lead he had. If he didn’t find him then he’d just go sit down somewhere and smoke until he either found him or he found a phone booth he could call from. He had been craving a cigarette for a while,a bad habit he picked up in jail. He found that smoking sometimes helped him with his nerves.  
It took him a few more minutes to spot him in the crowd until... 

Ah,finally,there he is. Guizhang,that son of a bitch.  
Wearing the typical suit and tie combo as he’d suspected with a added cream colored overcoat. He was leaning on a very elegant,fancy looking black cane.  
Their eyes meet and Guizhang made a face and sneered slightly, crossing his arms,as he always did when he saw him. Jeez,he really can’t help himself can he? It’s good to know that some things never change,at least.

He smirked and waved at him. “Yo! Old man!”

Guizhang’s face turned beet red.

Oh boy. That one really pissed him off!

That’s why he liked Guizhang so much,he was fun and easy to mess  
with.  
Not that he’d ever tell that to his face,the huge bastard.

Come to think of it,Ryo had told him once that he had never seen anyone rile up Guizhang as much as he did. Not even the thugs they encountered could set him off quite like he could.  
He was usually calm and reserved,the voice of reason alongside Shenhua, but he lost composure with him,for some reason.  
Ren delighted in the fact that he could cause such a effect on someone he perceived as a somewhat stuck-up rival.

Guizhang angrily gestured for him to come closer. He chuckled,readjusted his bag behind him and walked towards him.

Once he got close enough to him,Guizhang grunted out  
“So,you’re still alive after all.”

Some greeting,huh?

Ren cracked a smile. The first genuine one in a while,he noticed.

“What did you expect,that I’d be six feet under? Where you worried about me or something?”

“Hmph. I wasn’t worried about you in the slightest. I didn’t really care,because I knew you weren’t dead. Rats like you don’t die so  
easily.”

Oh.  
Ouch.  
He had expected him to be sore, and, granted, he had always been a very blunt guy, but he couldn’t lie and say that that hadn’t stung a bit.  
He hadn’t expected him to hold a grudge,especially over him. 

They always did clash. Back then on their traveling days they had many spats. He remembered a particularly nasty incident where they had gotten into a intense and furious screaming match were they had nearly come to blows. Ryo had been forced to put a pillow to his head in a futile attempt to block out the noise. It had even forced Shenhua out of her room to step in and intervine. That hadn’t been a fond memory. There where points where he really truly believed he hated him. Still,even with all of that he hadn’t really expected him to care enough about him as to hold a grudge. But this was... it was anger. Resentment. Over him? What the hell?  
Ren gave him a quizzical look.

“Jeez,you wake up on the wrong side of the bed or something?”

He opened his arms wide,in a mocking invitation for a hug.

“Where’s my warm welcome?”

Guizhang glared at him,death still for a few seconds before letting out a exasperated huff and turning away from him.  
“Just follow me.”

——————-

They walked deeper into the harbor,side by side in silence. He noticed that Guizhang still walked with a slight limp. It had been so long since he’d last saw him that he had nearly forgotten about it for a bit there....  
Ryo had told him about the accident once,many years ago. How he had pushed him out of the way and saved his life,but got his leg crushed under a concrete beam in the aftermath. Morbid curiosity made him wonder where exactly in the harbor it had happened,but he wasn’t about to ask him something like that. There was a difference between teasing and tastelessness,and he knew where the line lay.  
They had been walking along wordlessly until Guizhang suddenly asked:

“Well? Aren’t you gonna say anything?”  
Aaaaand there it is.  
Ren felt himself tense up. He knew this was inevitable,but he had wanted more time to prepare a appropriate answer. Or better yet,avoid it entirely.  
He feigned ignorance.  
“Say anything about what?”

“About what?” Repeated Guizhang,incredulous.  
“Don’t play dumb with me. What do you think I’m asking about? Where the hell have you been all these years?”

Ren looked away from him and stared at the ocean,his mind racing.

“Why did you cut contact with us?  
Do you have any idea how many times everyone asked for you? For your whereabouts? Why did you hide?”  
Ren just stared ahead.  
“I didn’t hide.”  
He slowly turned his head towards him.  
“It wasn’t my choice,Guizhang.”  
He sighed quietly.  
“You wanna go have a quick smoke?”  
“....Fine.”

The two men found a bench near the dock with a nice,scenic view of the ocean. Guizhang took out his lighter and lit Ren’s cigarette first and then his own.

For a moment they sat and smoked silently besides each other,enjoying the calm and watching the scattered fishermen cast their lines into the ocean.  
It occurred to Ren that it had been quite a while since he’d felt this at peace,especially in the presence of someone else. His time in jail had made him weary of anyone who stood too close,stared for too long. But he felt... quite at ease here.  
Guizhang remained quiet,a unspoken invitation for him to talk when ready.

Ren rubbed his hands  
“It’s not that I didn’t want to contact you guys,” he started,uncharacteristically quiet “its that I couldn’t. I was in jail.”

Guizhang exhaled smoke slowly. “Hmm. I suspected as much. What’d you do to end up incarcerated?”

Ren quirked a eyebrow.

“Didn’t Joy tell you anything?”  
Guizhang shook his head.

“She said it wasn’t her place to tell.”

Ren sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose.  
“Does it really matter what I did? I did something,got busted for it and paid the price. The faster I can leave all of that crap behind me,the better.”

Guizhang stared off into the docks,a strange expression on his face.  
“You don’t want to tell me.”

Ren cringed.  
“Dammit,Guizhang,I’m not...”  
He lowered his head and rubbed his temples. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,it just hasn’t... these last couple of years have not been easy,Guizhang.” 

Ren side eyed him,then turned to look at the sea again.

“The less I remember about my time in there,the better.  
I rather not have to talk about it if I don’t have to. You understand,right?”

Guizhang looked deep in thought.  
“That’s fine. It’s ok if you don’t want to talk about it. And it’s ok if you never want to talk about it either.”

Ren nod. Guizhang seemed to understand what he was saying,and he was glad he respected his choice. He hadn’t told anyone except Joy about the real reason he had been jailed,and only then because Joy had demanded to know,since she had been the one who helped him get out of jail in the first place and because she had lost her temper at him. Speaking of which...  
Ren turned to him,grinning.  
“Joy slapped me.”  
Guizhang chuckled softly.  
“You probably deserved it. She asked for you all the time. She was always worried about you,using her resources trying to track you down.”

“Really?” He knew they were friends but half of him had hoped and maybe even wished that Joy would forget about him,and go on with her life,just like he hoped the others would do too. And yet...  
Ren looked down,guilt emanating from his body like heat off a furnace.  
“Oh,jeez...”

Guizhang sighed deeply and rubbed his forehead. Headache?

“Your really did vanish,like a ghost. She sometimes told me how she worried that you needed help but couldn’t communicate with us for some reason. The thought wouldn’t let he sleep at night,she’d say.”  
Shame and guilt course through his veins like lava.  
He turned towards him.  
“You really left a hole in the group it would seem.  
Joy and Wong asked for you,Shenhua  
and Hazuki too. Even Xiuying was asking about you.”  
His heart leaped hearing all of those names out loud.  
“I think you need to realize that this wasn’t just you going away for a while and then coming back like nothing’s happened. You’re gonna have to own up to your absence. You really upset a lot of people with your departure.”

Ren looked down,clearly guilt ridden.  
“...did I upset you too?”  
Guizhangs face became somewhat flushed.  
“Wuying...” he warned.  
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly “I didn’t mean to tease.” It had been a genuine question,he thought to himself.

Guizhang huffed softly and continued.  
“All I’m trying to say is that Joy’s reaction might not be unique. You should prepare yourself for anger. You might not get the reactions you are expecting. You understand?”

Ren exhaled slowly. “....yeah,I know. I know.”

The silence that followed the exchange was heavy and uncomfortable. It’s the same stuff he had been thinking about on the boat,and it made him more anxious than he let on. It would crush him,to come this far only to be told to take a hike. He knew that if they reacted like that he’d had no one to blame but himself... but just the thought of it made him nearly nauseous.

Guizhang seemed to noticed his discomfort. He moved a bit closer and grabbed Ren’s shoulder,breaking him out of his thoughts.  
“Hey,I’m not telling you this to discourage you. I highly doubt they’ll react that way. I’m only mentioning it because it’s a possibility,even if slight. You understand?”  
“Yeah...” 

Ren though that he knew more about this than he was letting on. If he didn’t,then why even bring it up? But decided to drop it. Even if he asked he knew he’d receive no answer,and it would do no good to dwell on it right now. The guy is as stubborn as a mule. Instead he decided to focus on something,anything else.

Now that he was closer,he looked at Guizhang a little more carefully.  
He had just a few grey streaks in his hair,and his face had more lines than it did before. He looked more mature,more sophisticated than before. He wondered if it was something that came with age or of it was just something unique to him. He suspected the latter. He leaned into him and bumped his shoulder playfully.

“Time hasn’t been kind to you,has it,old man?” A bold faced lie,of course,He was more handsome now than ever before. Probably came with age. But what the hell did he know? 

Guizhang eyed him up and down.  
“That’s funny coming from you.” He said,staring pointedly at his face.  
“Where in the hell did you get that?” He asked,gesturing at his eye.  
Ren could help but let out a bitter laugh.  
“You mean this ,huh?”  
He asked, simultaneously tracing his facial scar with his thumb.

It was a old scar ; a nice little number that started near the left end of his eyebrow,arced upward slightly and then went abruptly downward and ended near the nose.

“ It’s just a little souvenir from prison.”  
He paused,and chuckled softly  
“If I’d been just a second slower,I would have lost a eye,I bet. I had to fight the bastard with blood covering my face and clouding my eyes...”

All of a sudden he felt Guizhang tense up next to him. Looking at him from the corner of his eyes,he could almost feel the cold fury emanating from his body.

When he spoke up he heard undeniable fury in his voice.  
“If I had been there - -“ he snarled. Stopped. Clenched and unclench his fits.  
Ren shook his head. “It’s in the past.” He patted Guizhang’s shoulder gently. “Not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment. I wish I could have another go at that bastard. But that’s old news now. Hey,now wherever I go I’ll be the cool old guy with the facial scar that all the kids are scared off. I think it’s kinda fitting,don’t you? Heh...”

Guizhang breathed out. It sounded like a hiss.He could almost feel Guizhang rolling his eyes without actually having to look at him.  
“That’s your prerogative.”

“Stop trying to ruin my fun old man.”

“Hmm. Hopefully you learned your lesson from all of this,and you’ll steer clear out of trouble from now on. Leave all of that street thug bullshit behind and start over,get a real job,a honest job. You had a lot of time to screw around,but now you have to be a man and grow up.”

Ren bristled. He still hated being told what to do,and he was sure Guizhang knew that. Was he trying to provoke him?  
“Tch. Don’t preach to me old man. I know what I want,and I know what I’m gonna do.”

“Good. If you’re not willing to change for others,at least be willing to do it for yourself.”

Ren felt those words struck a cord deep within his soul. He was right,as usual. If he wanted to get those years he lost in a cell back,he knew he’d had to clean up his act,and leave a part of his old self behind. And even if there was no way to reclaim his early 20’s he knew that if there was any chance at redemption and an fresh new start he’d have to get serious.

Guizhang spoke up,interrupting his thoughts.  
“Listen. If you ever need help getting a foot in the door,come to me. I’m sure I can find a way to help you,in whatever you may need.”

“ ‘Preciate it old man. I’ll keep it in mind.”

Ren noticed Guizhang subtlety grit his teeth at the old man comment being repeated.

“But seriously,through...” Ren said with a stretch of the arms  
“I’ll lead a straight edge life. As straight as uncooked pasta...”

“What was that?”

Ren felt himself smirk. “Nothing.”

Guizhang let out a long suffering sigh and said no more.  
They settled into a far more comfortable silence this time around.  
They sat there quietly,simply enjoying the silence,each other’s presence and the beautiful sunset. It felt like a long time had passed when Guizhang finally finished his cigarette and snuffed it out with the heel of his shoes.

He stood up,stretched,and spoke up.  
“Ok,let’s get going.”

“Wait. Are we heading over there now?”

“No,not now. Look,” he pointed to the sky behind them,bringing his attention to the huge looming clouds in the distance.  
“The weather forecast said there would be heavy rain all night. We can stay at the warehouse for tonight,and we’ll drive out there early tomorrow. You’ve come this far, you can you wait one more day can you?”  
Ren felt a strange mixture of both relief and disappointment at the same time. How two extreme opposite emotions can coexist simultaneously never ceased to amaze him.  
“Sure,I can wait one more night.”  
Guizhang nodded.  
“Let’s go.”

They reached the gate,passing by a guard reading a newspaper.  
Guizhang nodded at the man,and gestured towards Ren with his head.  
“He’s with me,Saito.”  
The guard,Saito,flicked his eyes over Ren briefly and nodded at Guizhang.  
“Have a good evening,Chen-san.”

They walked a little bit more until they where standing in front of warehouse 8. Guizhang fished around his pockets for a bit,took his keys out and opened the door. It was getting dark,and the streetlights turned on automatically around them.  
Guizhang stepped inside.  
He muttered “Close the door behind you.”while taking off his overcoat.  
Ren grabbed the door handle and was about to step inside when some unknown force stopped him in his tracks. He felt compelled to take one last look at the sky and the fast approaching rain clouds. They were hiding the stars from view. For some strange reason he felt a deep sense of disappointment at that. They were also blocking out most of the receding twilight sky at this point.

He must have stared off for a bit too long for Guizhang called out to him from somewhere deep inside the warehouse.

“What the hell are you doing? Come inside and close the door.”

Ren exhaled quietly

“Yeah,yeah. Hold your horses.”

Whatever happens now happens.  
He shut the door behind him gently.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> This was a absolute nightmare to write,cause I wrote it during a nightmarish period in my life,but I’m grateful to my friends who encouraged me to continue. This fanfic is for them.


End file.
